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Comfort vs Essential - What's the difference?

comfort | essential |

As nouns the difference between comfort and essential

is that comfort is contentment, ease while essential is a necessary ingredient.

As a verb comfort

is to relieve the distress or suffering of; to provide comfort to.

As an adjective essential is

necessary.

comfort

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Contentment, ease.
  • Sleep in comfort with our new mattress.
  • Something that offers comfort.
  • the comforts of home
  • A consolation; something relieving suffering or worry.
  • We still have the spare tire? That's a comfort at least.
  • A cause of relief or satisfaction.
  • The outcome of the peace negotiations in Moscow in 1940 was a heavy blow to the young nation, but in the same time a great comfort : at least the independency was preserved.

    Synonyms

    *

    Antonyms

    * austerity

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To relieve the distress or suffering of; to provide comfort to.
  • Rob comforted Aaron because he was lost and very sad.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Light excelleth in comforting the spirits of men.
  • To make comfortable. (rfex)
  • (obsolete) To make strong; to invigorate; to fortify; to corroborate.
  • (Wyclif)
  • * Hooker
  • God's own testimony doth not a little comfort and confirm the same.
  • (obsolete) To assist or help; to aid.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I cannot help the noble chevalier: / God comfort him in this necessity!

    Synonyms

    * besoothe

    Derived terms

    * cold comfort * comfort woman * comfortable * comforter * comforting * discomfort * letter of comfort ----

    essential

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Necessary.
  • Very important; of high importance.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-17
  • , author=George Monbiot, authorlink=George Monbiot , title=Money just makes the rich suffer , volume=188, issue=23, page=19 , magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) citation , passage=In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. Essential public services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax. […]}}
  • Being in the basic form; showing its essence.
  • Don’t mind him being grumpy. That’s the essential Fred.
  • Really existing; existent.
  • * Webster (1623)
  • Is it true, that thou art but a name, / And no essential thing?
  • Such that each complementary region is irreducible, the boundary of each complementary region is incompressible by disks and monogons in the complementary region, and no leaf is a sphere or a torus bounding a solid torus in the manifold.
  • (medicine) Idiopathic.
  • Synonyms

    * indispensable, crucial, substantive * See also

    Antonyms

    * inessential, unessential, accidental, nonessential, unneeded, adscititious, unimportant, accessorial, unnecessary, incidental

    Derived terms

    * essential amino acid * essential fatty acid * essential listening * essential nutrient * essential oil * essentially * essentialness * quintessential

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A necessary ingredient.
  • A fundamental ingredient.